Love Beyond Reason(4)
She made arrangements to take two weeks' vacation at the time she could bring Allison home and started scouting out the best day-care center for working mothers. It would have to be the best before she would entrust Allison into its care. It never occurred to her that her guardianship of the baby would be jeopardized.
She was bolted out of her placidity when the Mannings' lawyer called upon her at work. Inundating her desk with official-looking papers, he told her in his prissy, arrogant voice that his clients "...intend to take sole respon- sibility for the child."
"My clients are prepared to take the child and rear her as their own. Of course, for your time, trouble, and expense these past few weeks that she's been in the hospital, you will be compensated."
"You mean bought off, don't you?"
"Please, Miss Adams, I think you are misinterpreting the purpose of my clients. They are financially able to rear the child in an opulent environment. Surely you want what's in the best interest of the child?"
"The mother felt it in her child's best interest that I rear her." Wisely she refrained from telling him of the handwritten instructions.
"I'm sure the father's wishes would have differed greatly." Katherine hated his condescending attitude. "Besides, this discussion is academic. I'm sure no court would award guardianship of a child to a single working-girl with indeterminate morals, when such an illustrious couple as the Mannings are more than willing to take responsibility for their only grandchild, the heir and offspring of their eldest son."
The insult to her character was so unethical that Katherine didn't honor it with a comment, but she knew that he was threatening her. She could well imagine him saying words to that effect in a courtroom, and it chilled her to the bone to predict what the outcome of such a custody hearing would be.
Katherine stifled her initial panic and tried to reason through her predicament. Uppermost in her mind was the determination that Allison would not grow up under Eleanor Manning's tutelage. She didn't underesti- mate the Mannings' influence and power. They must have many friends in high places. She and Allison had to get away from them. Plans were made and she carried them out with dispatch.
The pediatrician agreed to release Allison from the hospital a few days earlier than he had originally planned with the condition that Katherine bring the infant to his office the following week. Katherine hated lying, but solemnly promised she would have the baby there.
She called a realtor and discussed the sale of her house. Whatever monies were made were to be put into a savings account in Allison's name. That could be collected later along with any interest accrued. All the furnishings in the house were to be sold, except what Katherine would take with her. The realtor could keep that money in payment for her trouble.
Katherine rented a safety deposit box and, after making a copy of the pitiful paper-towel document, lovingly fol- ded it into the metal box.
She didn't answer her telephone and covered her movements well. Her car was parked away from the house, and she sacrificed the use of lights after dark. Fearful of being presented with a subpoena, she strove for invisibility.
She packed everything she possibly could in the small compact car. Her emotions were running high as she picked up Allison from the hospital.
Katherine gently lay her in the car bed that was strapped by the safety belt onto the front seat of the car. She leaned over and placed a soft kiss on the velvet forehead.
"I don't know much about being a mother," she whispered to the sleeping child. "But then you don't know a lot about being a baby either."
Gazing down into Allison's sweet face that so reminded her of Mary, she felt at ease for the first time since hearing of Peter's death.
As she left Denver, she allowed herself no poignant backward glances toward the mountains or thoughts about selling the house that had been the only home she remembered. She thought of the future, hers and Allison's. From now on, they had no past.
* * *
Katherine straightened her back and hunched her shoulders to stretch the cramped muscles. She was sitting on the newspaper- lined living room floor of her garage apartment. For the past half-hour she had been painting a chest of drawers for Allison's room. The evening before she had applied the final coat of glossy blue to the wood surface and was now adding a contrasting yellow stripe. The yellow paint had spotted the newspaper and a few drops had landed on Katherine's bare legs.
Dipping the fine brush into the paint can, she sighed with contentment. Everything had turned out well for her and Allison. Under any circumstances, traveling halfway across the country by oneself with a newborn baby in tow would be an intimidating project. Katherine had left Denver under the grimmest of circumstances, yet the trip had gone smoothly. Allison was an angel of a baby, sleeping ev- ery minute that Katherine wasn't changing or feeding her.
Katherine never remembered living in Van Buren, Texas, but her family had lived in the small town before her father's insurance company had offered him a better job in Denver.
Katherine remem- bered her mother reminiscing about east Texas and its verdant landscape and deep woods. The pictures she painted of it belied the stereotypical depictions of Texas that portrayed vast barren landscapes with tumbleweeds being tossed about by incessant winds. Katherine, after driving through miles of country like that in west Texas, was surprised to find that Van Buren was just as her mother had described it – a peaceful, quaint college town nestled in the piny woods.